Starting tomorrow I will be doing an Artist Residency at Tvak Studios in Ahmedabad, India. For the month of February I will work on building a labyrinth with discarded materials sourced locally. Ahmedabad, former capital of the State of Gujarat, is one of the largest cities in India and it is well known for the textile industry. During my stay in this city I will try to incorporate some of the textiles in the design of the labyrinth. As a resident of Tvak Studios I will also participate in the Ashapalli Arts Festival, a confluence of art, curators and craft that will highlight the vibrancy and traditions of the city.

Gandhi's first Ashram in India is also in Ahmedabad and it's one of the main attractions. I am excited to visit this Ashram/Museum and learn more about the principles of non-violence.

I have been recently exploring the concept of sacred geometry and incorporating into my mural making. I see this work like mandala making, it contains the same structure of using natural patterns. The order of the universe is explained in this language of using basic forms, through which one tunes into a deeper internal order.​I feel that there is a subconscious benefit in these geometric forms and I am interested in playing with them in my murals. I bring a spiritual component into the art itself, which expands my vision of painting. Painting is not something isolated from the space but rather an extension of it. Painting is not limited by the space or the architecture. It redefines the space, blurring the borders, this way the mural becomes "inhabitable".

I welcome my clients into the possibility of co-creating in this process. Collaboration can take the form of a ritual creation in one's living space as a powerful part of the process, or other meditative or energetic work throughout the mural’s creation.

Interested in co-creating a mural with me? contact me at pazdelacalzada@yahoo.com

Open Studios in our building is this weekend. I will have available new drawings on silk and paper. I have also been working on other mural projects inspired in arabic geometric patterns. Come by and visit me in Studio # 211.

This fall is bringing me closer to my fascination with patterns, both geometrical and from the natural world. In previous work, like Vertical Garden, or even older work like Des-Nudos, I had explored this theme and the possible relationship that these patterns could have with the architecture and the urban landscape.

After a few years working with labyrinths with the idea of bringing together community, public space and ritual, I continue my studio work researching about the mystic proportions and symbolism of geometric patterns.

This new body of work, is inspired in Sacred Geometry. Using carpet as the main material to create the patterns I started this new series with the number 8, the number that some spiritual orders attribute to infinite.

During my residency at ArtAmari, in the Amari Valley in Central Crete, I had the opportunity to research and build two labyrinths with the help of the local community. Crete is the land of the Classical seven circuit labyrinth. This mythical labyrinth was built by Daedalus for the legendary Minotaur during the war between Athens and Crete. Theseus, the Athenian hero, was challenged to enter the labyrinth, kill the minotaur and liberate the Athenians from Crete.

Mostly everybody in Crete knows about this myth but not very many can describe or draw how this labyrinth looks like. It was very exciting to teach, specially kids, how to draw a Cretan seven circuit labyrinth and build one in the local High School's courtyard.

During my time at ArtAmari Residency in Crete I built a Minoan labyrinth made of stones. This video is an interview I had with Cretan TV about my residency in Crete and the theme of the labyrinth in my work.

Last Saturday I arrived to the Amari Valley, a fertile valley with small ancient villages in Central Crete. I will spend almost a month as a guest artist at ArtAmari Residency in the tiny village of Kalogeros.

After over two years working with The Nomadic Labyrinth, I feel the need to complete a circle around this project and explore the possibilities of using the labyrinth as a container for the creation of ritual. I can't think of a better place than Crete - the island of the origins of the Classical seven circuit labyrinth - to do an artist residency and dive into the rituals that are still part of this ancient culture.

On my first day in the valley I met Lambros, a resident of the near by village of Thronos, where he owns a Taverna, in Greek a small restaurant that serves local food. Lambros is an enthusiastic man who knows the land, its herbs and flowers. He also makes his own wine and raki - a very strong liquor made of the distillation of grape skin.

I am using the old Byzantine chapel of Agia Paraskevi as a temporary studio. After talking with a member of the local Orthodox church, Angeliki - ArtAmari Residency Director - and I started building a Classical Cretan seven circuit labyrinth next to the chapel. I will use this labyrinth as a container for a series of rituals inspired by the seven phases of Alchemy as described in the Emerald Table. Each of these rituals will include elements of the local landscape and the Amari Valley culture.

Today I started making a tincture with three local herbs suggested by Lambros: Dittany of Crete, Sage and Marjoram. He also gave me a bottle of his homemade raki to extract the medicine from the herbs. Dittany of Crete grows up in the near by mountains . It is said it has magical properties and that Greek Goddess Aphrodite healed the wounds of Aeneas with an extract of this plant. Cretan people enjoy Dictamo- as they call it here - as an herbal tea since the Minoan times.

In the last couple of weeks I've been working on a site-specific charcoal drawing in the staircase of a loft in San Francisco's Mission District. The space, a remodeled auto body shop is now a dance and painting studio. The mural features a strand of hair going up the stair from the entrance to the second floor.

Last Saturday January 17th, my friend and colleague Liz Hickok and I participated in an unusual Art Salon in a private loft in San Francisco. Last Fall Open Studios, psychotherapist Alison Leigh came to my studio and we talked about the possibility of working together showing my work in her studio loft. After a few conversations we invited my studio mate Liz to join us in this project.

The result was a casual but very intentional art salon where both Liz and myself did presentations about our work in front of a non traditional art crowd. Liz talked about her Jello Project and she made a demonstration on how she fabricated the models of San Francisco emblematic buildings. I introduced two projects, The Tenderloin Dreamscapes and my latest public work, The Nomadic Labyrinth.

This interesting collaboration makes me think about the infinite possibilities of expanding the outreach of my art practice while connecting with an alternative audience.